Corzine'$ La$t $tand

East Brunswick, New Jersey
On the surface, the race in New Jersey doesn't make much sense: Jon Corzine is a Democratic millionaire incumbent in a very blue state. He is outspending his Republican opponent, Attorney General Chris Christie, by more than 3-to-1. He has behind him the stars of the Democratic firmament. And yet Corzine has run behind Christie from day one.

The climate is that bad for Corzine in New Jersey. Unemployment is 9.8 percent. There's a budget deficit of $8 billion. Taxes are rising across the board. After Christie won his party's nomination in June, he jumped to a double-digit lead. Unable to move his own numbers--he's polled over 42 percent only once since January--Corzine went negative, trying to drive some of the anti-Corzine vote away from Christie and to Chris Daggett, an independent candidate who, luckily for Corzine, raised enough money to qualify for matching funds and to be included in the debates.

The governor attacked Christie for an undisclosed loan to one of his subordinates. He attacked the husky Christie for his weight. He attacked Christie for being a tool of the Bush/Rove/Ashcroft axis of evil, which is awfully brazen, as Christie first achieved national notice as one of the U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush Justice Department. To some degree, though, the ads worked. In June, the polls had Christie at 50, Corzine at 37, and Daggett at 4. Today it's Christie 40, Corzine 39, and Daggett 14--Daggett's gains have all come from Christie.

Thrilled to be anywhere close to even, Corzine began last week with a big rally in Edison with Joe Biden as his very special guest. Hundreds of people packed a gymnasium to hear the vice president testify about how vital Corzine's help has been to the Obama administration. While talking about Obama's stimulus bill, for example, Biden said: "I literally picked up the phone and called Jon Corzine and said 'Jon, what do you think we should do?' " The next day, Corzine held two rallies with Bill Clinton, each drawing more than a 1,000 people. On Wednesday, President Obama headlined an event in Hackensack, which drew a crowd of 3,500, and New York's almost senator, Caroline Kennedy, barnstormed with the governor.

The New York Times has also been riding shotgun. To kick off Corzine's big week, the Sunday edition of the Times gave him an emphatic endorsement. On Monday, the paper ran a blockbuster story in which unnamed sources suggested that the subordinate to whom Christie had loaned money might have done favors for Christie and that it was possible that some of these favors might have been improper. The breathless, anonymously sourced piece was eerily reminiscent of the Times's McCain-lobbyist-affair hit job from February 2008. To cap off its run, the Times produced a poll showing Corzine magically leading Christie by 3 points. (Of the dozens of polls conducted this year, only one other survey has suggested Corzine was doing so well, and that came from a Democratic research firm.)

But Corzine's real strength is his money. He has only raised $1.2 million, but has kicked in $15.6 million of his own money to wage a massive ad war. That number, which includes only donations made before October 6, will be a lot higher at the conclusion of the race, but it brings his lifetime total of spending on his political races to $120 million. The money has made Corzine ads ubiquitous in both the Philadelphia and New York markets.

Corzine's real problem, though, remains unchallenged: He's wildly unpopular. His campaign has tried out three messages to overcome this: (1) Corzine has done a good job, and New Jersey is better off now than it was before; (2) these are scary times and we can't trust a right-wing Republican like Chris Christie; (3) Barack Obama will be disappointed if Corzine loses.

The first case is particularly unconvincing, and even Corzine's people don't seem to believe it. Bill Clinton, for instance, tried to bolster Corzine's accomplishments by noting that Jersey's foreclosure rate, while still high by the state's historical standard, is down by 30 percent. Ticking off the governor's top accomplishments, Representative Rob Andrews boasted that "Someday, you'll be able to take a train from Camden to Glassboro because of Jon Corzine." (If you aren't from Jersey, try to imagine celebrating future ferry service between Hades and Limbo.)

The charge that Christie is a conservative nut is no more convincing. At one rally last week, Corzine attacked Christie by non sequitur, saying that he "would have sided with Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford" on the subject of stimulus money.